


A Bloodless Cut

by MoanDiary



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Bangs Chloe will destroy me, Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-10-11 22:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20553752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoanDiary/pseuds/MoanDiary
Summary: She’s not the first woman to find herself alone in front of her bathroom mirror, scissors in hand, martyred hair littering the sink, suddenly face-to-face with the cold certainty that she’s made aterriblemistake.





	1. Chapter 1

She’s not the first woman to find herself alone in front of her bathroom mirror, scissors in hand, martyred hair littering the sink, suddenly face-to-face with the cold certainty that she’s made a _terrible_ mistake.

An hour ago she’d been drinking alone on a weeknight  一 a tried and true recipe for Chloe Decker Disaster™  一 thinking about what a mess she’d made of her life. 

Her attempt at happy, normal domesticity with Dan had collapsed. She’d accepted a marriage proposal from her boss, who was actually a criminal mastermind and, oh yeah, _Cain from the Bible_ after dating him for a paltry six weeks because he seemed more normal than _the actual Devil_, who was her best friend and partner, and whom she was in love with. And then she’d really blown the whole “Satan wants to date me” thing by freaking out about it, betraying him, and inadvertently forcing him to return to Hell to keep humanity safe.

Supernatural bullshit aside, why couldn’t she manage to develop romantic feelings for _even a single person_ she didn’t work with?

She liked to think of herself as reasonable, responsible, practical. The eternal adult amongst people behaving like children. But it was time to finally come face-to-face with the ugly truth that she, Chloe Decker, was a hot mess. Something about who she was and how she lived her life just wasn’t fucking _working_.

So, tear-streaked and sniffling, she found herself interrogating her reflection. She hadn’t changed her hairstyle for a decade. Maybe longer. Her mother had always praised her for her long hair. Had taken her to the salon to get highlights at the age of seven because “blondes get better parts.” And people seemed to like it, so Chloe had never really bothered to change. Had maintained the appearance people praised so much with the same dutiful, dispassionate responsibility that she cleaned the bathroom or put away Trixie’s toys or read Miranda rights to suspects Lucifer summarily handcuffed to the saddle of a restive police horse.

Even betraying Lucifer had just been doing what other people said was right. She didn’t follow any particular religion, and knowledge of the existence of an afterlife aside, had no reason to take sides in what was by all accounts a complex and ancient celestial dispute. But society seemed insistent that God was good and the Devil was evil so who was she to disagree?

Was that who she wanted to be forever? The responsible adult who did whatever people expected of her? Who followed every rule set down by some group of self-righteous men hundreds of years ago? Who looked exactly how society wanted her to look? Who fell in love with whichever co-worker or celestial being showed her the slightest bit of attention?

She rummaged around in her medicine cabinet until she found her scissors. Things were going to change.

* * *

In the cold light of morning she decides it could’ve been worse. She might have tried to see how well she could pull off a bob. Or a pixie cut. The bangs she gave herself are uneven and over-long. Even with the emotional support of too many glasses of rosé she hadn’t had the guts to really go for it.

When she arrives in the kitchen, Trixie’s eyebrows fly upwards.

“_Mom_. What did you _do_?”

Chloe sighs. Judgement from a tween who not all that long ago attempted to give herself a mohawk with Dan’s electric razor. She scoops coffee grounds into the machine and fills the reservoir with water. 

“I decided to make a change. Don’t worry, I’m going to the salon this morning to get it...cleaned up.”

Trixie snorts. “You’d better.”

When she turns back from the coffee maker, Trixie has her phone raised. There’s the unmistakable sound of a camera shutter. “Maze is gonna love this.”

* * *

Her hairdresser, Shannon, is blessedly silent as she appraises the damage. “This is workable. Now, are these bangs we want to keep or bangs we want to pretend didn’t happen?”

“Keep. I think.” Chloe responds with a tight, close-lipped smile. “I was also thinking about going completely brown.”

“Really, au naturale?” Shannon seems more surprised by this than by the sight of the DIY bangs. “We’ve been doing the highlights forever.”

Chloe stares down her reflection with conviction. “It's a new day.”


	2. Chapter 2

Chloe strides into work with deliberate confidence to mask her anxiety. If there’s one thing worse than working in a predominantly male field, it’s making any change at all to your personal appearance while working in a predominantly male field. 

Dan barely spares her a glance as he strides over to her desk, face buried in a case file. 

“Got a fresh one, Chlo. Apparently a bus driver was found dead in the backseat of a limo. Kind of ironic, huh?” He looks up at her and after a moment his brow furrows. “You changed something.”

Chloe raises her eyebrows, an expectant smile on her face.

“Is it…” Dan squints cautiously. “New...lipstick?”

“No,” Chloe sighs and snatches the file out of his hands.

“Something with your hair. It's...shorter?”

“No, I got bangs, Dan. And dyed it. And it’s not a big deal, okay? Let’s just do our jobs.” 

He shrugs as if to say “Women! What are you gonna do?” and they continue with work as usual.

Chloe reminds herself that she can’t change other people, but she can change herself.

She sits at her computer, opens a blank document, and types:

**Resolutions**

  1. Not to let others dictate who I should be or what I should want.
  2. To take time for myself every day.
  3. To cultivate NON-ROMANTIC relationships.
  4. Not to fall in love with co-workers.
  5. Not to dwell on Hell, Heaven, God, the concept of predestination, etc.
  6. Not to think about Lucifer when I should be paying attention to a case.

She surveys her list with satisfaction, prints it out, and puts it in her desk drawer. _ There, now that’s done_, she thinks. 

* * *

After work, she calls Linda.

“Hey, you free tonight? I mean, I know you’re probably busy with Charlie and everything, but...”

“Is everything okay, Chloe? We haven’t been able to really talk since—”

“It’s fine. I’m fine. I just felt like we hadn’t had a Tribe Night in a while.”

“Are you sure nothing’s wrong? You never plan girls’ nights.”

“Well, I’ve decided that I will now.”

Later, Linda and Ella coo at her new hair over fruity drinks with the slightly overblown approval of supportive female friendship. Maze shrugs and says “Brown’s better on you than blonde,” which somehow means more than all of Ella’s effusive compliments.

She brushes her bangs back from her forehead and feels something new and delicate growing within her.

* * *

The dating app sits ominously on the home screen of her phone for a week before she can summon the will to open it. Lucifer has been gone for two hundred and thirty-five days. She, Chloe Jane Decker, is a single mom staring down 40.

She swipes through the men it presents her with. Single dad, likes camping. Car salesman, likes _ Family Guy_. IT Professional with photo of him and a fish he caught. Technical Writer with photo of a fish he caught. Small business owner with a fish he caught. A lot of these guys have caught at least one fish, apparently.

She closes the app with an angry tap. What’s she looking for? Nightclub owner, actually the Devil? Absurdly handsome and wealthy? Looks at her like she’s the center of the universe? Would gladly die for her?

That night, not for the first time, she goes to his penthouse. Turns on lights that have been dark far too long. Takes a rumpled dress shirt out of his neglected hamper and curls up in his unmade bed. Convinces herself she can still smell him, even if it’s not true. Cries herself to sleep, aching with the loss of him.

* * *

She goes on two dates with Jason, a sweet and soft-spoken man who works as an architect. He designs office buildings and retail spaces. She asks him if he’s ever worked in law enforcement (No.) or ever felt the compulsion to punish evildoers (What? Of course not!). He has a subtle, dry wit and he’s cute. He’s sandy-haired and slightly balding and his face is creased with the evidence of a ready smile and he doesn’t call any of the other men she’s loved to mind.

They kiss outside her door for a few minutes at the end of their second date and Chloe desperately, _ desperately_ wishes she felt something. She thinks things would be so much easier if she could just love this man. But she’s been down this road before, and she made a promise not to lie to herself anymore.

“I don’t think this is going to work out,” she says.

* * *

Lucifer’s shirts gradually migrate from his penthouse to her apartment. Unconsciously, or maybe a little consciously, she keeps wearing them home after her frequent self-indulgent, mournful nights in his penthouse. She thinks it’s as if she’s started dating his ghost. All the trappings of a boyfriend with none of the benefits.

One Friday, nearing laundry day and finding herself needing another layer to wear on top of her t-shirt in order to approximate business casual, she takes one of his clean shirts out of her closet and puts it on, rolling the sleeves up so her hands are accessible. She looks at herself in the mirror and decides it’s cute and casual. Totally passes as a fashion statement. Not sad at all.

But at work, the look in Ella’s eyes is pitying. Chloe pretends not to notice. Fingers the cuffs, imagining him tugging on them unconsciously. Touches the bullet necklace she’s been wearing since he disappeared from that balcony.

_ Violating resolution 6 again_, she thinks. A day hasn’t passed that she hasn’t.


	3. Chapter 3

Over the course of the next year, Chloe schedules Tribe Nights every two weeks, religiously. And when they get tired of the same three bars she throws herself into exhaustively surveying Yelp for new ones. Reads the reviews with the skepticism of someone who interviews liars day in and day out. Takes exhaustive notes. The venues she picks are so well-regarded that other cops around the precinct start asking her for recommendations.

She goes on 47 dates with 15 men. None of the relationships really pan out. But she has more sex than she’s had since Pierce and that, at least, does her some good. 

Trixie’s begun to reach the age where hanging out with Mom doesn’t seem quite so cool or fun anymore. Middle school brings with it school dances and hormones and _ boys_. Maze’s training intensifies and Chloe doesn’t protest much other than to forbid Trixie to bring a knife to school. 

She and Dan are partners now, have been since he finally had his rank restored. They bring down a notoriously brutal mafia button man and receive special commendations in a ceremony at City Hall. There are whispers that Chloe is likely to make lieutenant soon. She’s both thrilled and terrified; she never aspired to be more than a detective, but she also never imagined with her unsteady start and the setback of Palmetto that she’d be given the opportunity. And she can’t help but feel that much of the thrill has gone out of the job these past couple of years.

When the offer suddenly comes one day, she takes it.

* * *

Every weekend that Dan has Trixie, though, she returns to Lucifer’s penthouse. Dusts the piano, straightens the liquor bottles. Picks a volume at random from his library and reads it curled up on the couch, or on his balcony, or in his bed. In his absence, she’s taken to thinking of it as _ her _ bed, too.

She explores areas of the building that she hardly knew existed. Lower floors that contain millennia of clothing and curios, ranging from the banal to the priceless. She examines everything in turn, wishing he were here to tell her how they ended up in his possession. She googles some things, like the piece of aged parchment spattered with something dark that reads in a messy, drunken hand: 

> _ You at least will remember the real ending, my dear Prince of the East. _
> 
> _ \- Kit Marlowe _

Wonders how much scholars of all stripes would pay for a peek at his collection. She can’t imagine letting a single one in, though.

The new, no-nonsense, goal-oriented, militantly independent Lieutenant Decker in her head berates her endlessly. It’s useless to expend so much time and thought and heartache on him. What she measures in years — _ decades _ — is nothing but a fleeting moment to someone as unimaginably old as him. She’ll never be able to move on and find someone else to spend her life with if she doesn’t let go of him.

And yet. And yet.

* * *

“Like a bat out of Hell” is somewhere between metaphorically and literally accurate.

Lucifer attempts to come to a graceful landing on his balcony, but it’s really more of a barely-controlled skid, rolling to a halt in a jumble of battered, ash-coated limbs and feathers.

“What the — Lucifer!” 

She’s here. How is she here? Her voice is coming from somewhere in the direction of his bedroom but he’s having trouble getting his eyes to show him just one of everything. There’s the sound of rapid, bare-footed steps approaching and her figure swims into his field of vision. She crouches next to him, hands hovering hesitantly. Checking for injuries.

He squints up at her and gradually she comes into focus. Oh.

“Detective, you’ve changed your hair.”

She gapes at him.

“I like it.”

He manages a smile that aims at winning but lands somewhere in the vicinity of dazed and goofy before passing out.

* * *

When he comes to, it’s to the sensation of a cool cloth swiping gently along his face. His eyes flutter open and fix immediately on Chloe, looming anxiously over him, one of his washcloths in hand. He can’t decide if it’s the hair framing her face that makes her look so different — softer, darker, more mysterious — or something in her eyes.

“I wanted to put you into your bed, but you were too heavy and I didn’t want to try dragging you up the stairs with your wings, so—” she rambles and his atrophied heart swells with affection. She’s wedged a pillow under his head and draped a throw blanket over him. He surveys it, already smudged gray with ash, wincing. That will definitely need to be dry-cleaned. 

“Already trying to get me into bed, Detective?” 

“It’s Lieutenant.”

“What?”

“Lieutenant, not Detective.”

He’s stunned silent for a minute, blinking as his brain recalibrates. He knows he’s been gone for a long time, but he hadn’t reckoned with the reality of all the things he’s _ missed _ until this moment. Humans lived so quickly, changed so quickly. 

“Well...congratulations are in order, I suppose, Lieutenant.” It feels odd in his mouth.

He sits up gingerly, cataloging his various cuts and bruises and deciding none are particularly worrying. More than anything, he’s bone-tired. Tired of the maneuvering and manipulation. Tired of the uprisings are crackdowns. Tired of reigning. He hazards a guess from the lack of new lines on her face that he hasn’t been gone for more than a few years in Earth time, but for him, it’s been decades. Decades that don’t bear contemplation now that he’s here, with her, and he knows she’s finally safe. From demonic threats, at least.

He gives his wings a little shake and there’s a snowfall of ash before he furls them into nothingness. Chloe coughs and covers her mouth.

“Apologies.” He looks at her out of the corner of his eye while he makes a show of brushing off and folding the throw. She’s watching him with something like shock or bafflement, sitting on the floor a scarce few feet away from him. He really hadn’t expected her to be here when he arrived, hadn’t planned out what he would say or do. And he feels...shy. It’s a curious sensation. They’ve never been apart for this long before. What did she do in his absence? What else changed beyond her promotion? Did she still…?

“Lucifer,” she whispers, gingerly taking his hand in hers. “Are you—” she swallows with difficulty, looking down at their joined hands. “Is this...permanent?”

He smiles tentatively. “As far as I know.”

She looks up at him again, eyes brimming with tears, a tremulous smile breaking like the dawn over her face before she’s in his arms, embracing him like she’s trying to squeeze the life out of him. He stiffens instinctively, his body having been fully re-trained to expect attack rather than affection. But he forces himself to relax and bring his hands up to rest on her back, cup her head. And it feels sweet, and it aches like pressing on a bruise, and he’s missed it _ so much_.

She’s shuddering with violent, hiccuping sobs and he works at swallowing back his own tears. “I w-was s-s-sure I was g-gonna die alone and b-be eaten by my own c-cats!” She wails.

“Not on my watch,” he murmurs. Now this, _ this _ he remembers. How small and delicate she feels. The way she seems to burrow into him. The heat of her breath against his chest. He caresses her back in aimless circles that he hopes are comforting.

After a few minutes, she collects herself and, sniffling, pulls back to look at him again. Her mouth quirks in a crooked smile. Red-nosed and red-eyed and tear-stained, she is, undoubtedly, the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on.

“You _ really _ need a shower.”

He groans and lets his forehead drop onto her shoulder. “You’re telling me! And I’d like to sleep for at least two solid days.”

She turns towards him and her lips brush his ear. “You’re going to tell me what happened down there, right?”

He sighs. “Yes. But not now.”

“Fair enough.”

She stands and helps him to his feet. His legs are as shaky as a newborn foal’s, but they hold him all the way through the bedroom, past the unmade bed that she clearly had been laying in when he arrived, to the bathroom. Chloe leaves him in the doorway, bustling to retrieve a towel and a robe. 

“You’re quite efficient, Det—Lieutenant. Spent some time here in my absence, have you?”

She blushes adorably. “Maybe. Yes. Sorry.”

He grins. “Don’t be. I quite like the idea.”

He showers as quickly as he can, the bone-deep fatigue pulling at him. The water feels exquisitely good. He notes that his bathing products have been used and refilled, and supplemented with a few more feminine ones he doesn’t recognize. Thinking about Chloe showering here, thinking about him, missing him, sends a shiver of delight through him. In Hell, he’d both hoped for and dreaded her finding happiness without him, with someone else. He feels a dark, guilty glee that she didn’t.

She’s sitting on the corner of the bed when he emerges, but leaps to her feet immediately, stepping aside so he can climb under the covers.

“Is there anything you need? Anything I can do?”

“No, I think I can take it from here,” he yawns, punching a pillow.

She’s silent for a long moment as he settles in.

“I don’t want to go,” she says, hovering in the doorway, wringing her hands.

“Then don’t.” He pulls back the covers in invitation, fighting to keep his eyes open.

She waffles and seems about to duck into the closet, but then a resolute expression that he doesn’t quite recognize takes up residence on her face. She swiftly unbuttons her jeans and pulls them off, then removes her shirt, _ and then her bra_.

He swallows with difficulty, his mouth suddenly bone dry. A topless Chloe Decker strides confidently into his closet and returns a moment later, pulling one of his shirts on and buttoning it part-way.

“Lieutenant,” he breathes as she slides into bed next to him. It’s a testament to how exhausted he is that even considering her state of undress, this intriguing newfound boldness, and the fact that she’s mere inches away from him in his bed, he can’t muster a suggestive comment. He would dearly like to demonstrate his appreciation, but his eyelids feel like they have lead weights attached to them, so all he can manage is to throw an arm around her and pull her close before he surrenders to sleep.

* * *

Chloe lies awake.

She’s too shocked to be simply happy, too certain the rug will be pulled out from under her somehow. She built all these elaborate structures to bridge the yawning void left inside her when Lucifer left, and she’s not sure what will happen to them now that he’s back. It’s thrilling, in a way.

But at least she knows she survived. Could survive again. Life dealt her yet another painful blow and she came through it stronger, more resilient.

She turns in his embrace to face him, reacquainting herself with his perfect, unchanging face. He’s love and happiness and everything she’s missed these past two years, but he’s also a litany of inevitable emotional wounds to come. The pain of aging while he stays young. The prospect of an eternal afterlife without him. The certain truth that he’ll say and do things that annoy her every single day of her life.

She can’t wait.


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Filling this Tumblr prompt here because it fits well with this story:
> 
> Chloe doesn't know that time passes differently in hell, so when Lucifer returns she thinks he seems off but she can't figure out why. That is, until she sees his favorite Rolex watch, scuffed and smelling like brimstone, and stopped on the year 2028.

When Chloe wakes the next morning, Lucifer is still dead to the world, so she opts to let him sleep, slipping quietly out of his bed and into the bathroom. After relieving herself, she surveys the mess Lucifer left last night during his half-asleep shower and stumble into bed. 

The shower itself needs a cleaning—he left ashy water spattered all over the immaculate marble tile and the glass door. His formerly black suit has been turned almost uniformly gray with ash. She hopes it’s not a complete loss. The shirt seems likely to be; the cuffs are frayed and there’s a dark spray of _ something _ across the front.

She smiles as she realizes that, of course, Lucifer went commando to Hell.

She picks up his jacket, which fell a few inches short of making it into the hamper, to put it in with the other questionable, strongly sulphur-scented items of clothing and notices something on the floor beneath it. It’s his watch, she realizes as she bends to pick it up. A gorgeous thing that she once looked up online on a whim, and the price of it almost gave her a coronary. The face is cracked and the gold scuffed and the hands are, unsurprisingly, motionless. _ What happened down there? _ She wonders. _ Two years of nonstop combat? _

Then she looks at the face again. It’s one of those fancy watches with several complications, like the month, the day of the week, the cycle of the moon. And the year. And that one reads 2028. It _ stopped _in 2028. Eight years in the future.

She is baffled for a moment. Did Lucifer time-travel? Has this whole thing been a dream? Could a $30,000 watch keep time _ that _ badly?

She lets the jacket fall into the hamper and carries the watch back into Lucifer’s bedroom, sitting absently on the edge of the bed, staring at the tiny numbers.

Lucifer stirs and mumbles something incoherent, groping blindly at the side of the bed she recently vacated. Finding nothing, his eyes crack open, blearily searching the room. He smiles sleepily when he finally locates her, patting the sheets next to him.

“S’too early, le’s sleep more,” he slurs, his eyes falling shut again.

“Lucifer, how long were you in Hell?”

His eyes open again, his drowsiness fading as he examines her expression more closely.

“I don’t know, what year is it?”

“2020.”

“Then two years, it would seem.”

She huffs in frustration at this obvious evasion, holding up the watch. “I mean how long was it for you in Hell? Your watch says 2028.”

He sighs regretfully. “Ah yes, my poor Jaeger-LeCoultre. Gave up the ghost early on.”

She feels horror rising up her throat like bile. “‘_Early on? _ ’ Lucifer, this is eight years from now! Are you telling me you were down there for _ much longer _ than ten years?”

He rolls onto his back and rubs his eyes tiredly. “Unfortunately time passes considerably more rapidly in Hell. Or more slowly depending on which side of relativity you’re sitting on. Or perhaps it’s more technically correct to say there’s much _ more _ of it there—”

“Lucifer,” she cuts him off. “How. Long.”

“I can’t say that I counted precisely, but somewhere around a century, I’d wager.”

She’s speechless, aghast, unable to do anything but stare at him. She thinks about how painful it was without him. How thoughts of him dogged her relentlessly, numbed barely at all by the passage of time. The past two years were agonizing. And he went through _ fifty times _ that?

She feels her lip begin to tremble, barely registering Lucifer’s alarmed expression or him scrambling towards her across the bed before she’s sobbing in his arms again.

“There, now,” he murmurs. “It wasn’t all that bad. Only a handful of demon uprisings. And I had something I’ve never had down there before.”

He pushes her back a bit so he can look her in the eyes, his gaze fond and warm in the morning sunlight. She looks up at him questioningly, and he cups her cheek, wiping away her tears with his thumb.

“You. Loving me. All of me.” Tears glimmer in his eyes too, but he’s still smiling.

“I still do,” she whispers.

His smile trembles a bit as they stare at each other for a long moment, then he clears his throat, sitting back and wiping swiftly at his eyes. She knows he’s not ready to say it, and may never be, at least not in so many words. But it’s there in his gaze—still there—a hundred years later.

He sits leaning up against the headboard, long legs crossed at the ankle, and pulls her next to him, looping an arm around her shoulders.

“Now that I’m rested enough to be coherent, we can catch up. So tell me, Lieutenant, what’s the story behind those bangs?”


End file.
